


heaven is a place on earth

by ahbonjour



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, Multi, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed, Sleepovers, Tea, ignoring the sequel, like it's just 'sharing a bed: the fic'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 04:56:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16570070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahbonjour/pseuds/ahbonjour
Summary: "What are we gonna do, Hermann?”(an examination of what to do immediately following the cancellation of the apocalypse.)





	heaven is a place on earth

The world went into uproar after cancelling the apocalypse, then quickly quieted, like a violin string crescendo, then it’s snap.

The news that the breach had been closed, that the Kaiju were gone forever, spread like wildfire across the world. Impromptu parties broke out everywhere, parents gathered their children in their arms, bars made the most money they ever had and every single one was packed. At the Hong Kong Shatterdome, the post-apocalypse party lasted hours, music being blasted out of dorm rooms and bottles of alcohol clinking their way into every mouth in the building. Dancing broke out in the hallways, spontaneous love broke out in the commissary. It was the most pure expression of joy and relief any of them had ever felt, or ever would again.

However, just as quickly as the global parties broke out, they fell apart. The citizens of Earth collectively realized how exhausted they were and found their ways to their beds, still gripping bottles and noisemakers and the hands of those around them. Desperate for human contact, people found other people, and slept with them that night, limbs tangled and bodies pressed together in a breathing, beating reminder that they were still alive, the person they were next to was still alive. Very few of these connections involved sex; the people of Earth were too exhausted for that. Fathers fell asleep with their children laying across their chests, wives clutched their spouses close to their breasts. Strangers found each other in the darkness and rented motel rooms, only to fall asleep as soon as they hit the bed, the forgotten promise of a kiss lingering on their lips until it was gone.

At the Hong Kong Shatterdome, all the young workers piled their mattresses into the middle of their shared dorm floor and laid across it, tangled together like a web. Older engineers slept on couches together, colleagues tried to sleep alone and quickly discovered they couldn’t—the hallways were full of the sounds of doors swishing open, feet padding across the floor, and tentative knocks. Every knock was answered. No one slept alone.

Tendo didn’t stay for the party, he immediately left and found his wife, halfway between the Shatterdome and their apartment. Alison was walking towards him on the sidewalk, wearing slippers and her winter coat over her pajamas, and when she looked up and saw him, his breath caught in his throat. Against the watercolor background of the city, her black hair mussed in a halo around her head, she looked angelic. She looked at him with parted lips, and he fell in love with her again.

“Hi,” he said. His palms were sweating like he was a nervous teenager. “You heard—”

“Of course,” she said. He saw tears welling in her beautiful eyes and he closed the distance between them, and her kiss tasted like salt and victory.

Herc had no one to go to; his son and the only true peer he had were both buried under thousands of gallons of seawater. He passed by Chuck’s room, ran his hand over the door he’d hesitated outside of so many times. He passed by Stacker’s chambers, pressing his fingers against the door he’d gone through so many times to seek council, or advice, or friendship. He ended up at the controls for the Jaegers, staring across the expanse of warehouse out at the half-conceived robots staring back at him. They had won, Chuck and Stacker’s sacrifice hadn’t been for nothing, but he couldn’t dig himself out of the empty hole in his chest.

He didn’t see Max until the dog was nosing his way under Herc’s hand. His cold nose caught Herc by surprise, and his initial reaction was to recoil, but the dog was insistent and he wormed his way over and into Herc’s lap.

“Aw, Max,” Herc groaned, even as he wrapped his arms around the big boy and rubbed his face into Max’s collar. “You’re too big for this.”

Raleigh paced back and forth across his room, debating whether to bother her or not. She must be devastated, her father having died only hours earlier, but he couldn’t help but feel a pull in his head towards her. Mako felt like home to him now, and he knew he needed her. Whether just for now, or forever, he didn’t know, but he would settle for tonight.

Raleigh made up his mind and opened his door to go across the hall, but stopped short at the sight of Mako across from him, her door already open, the same look of trepidation and determination echoed on her face.

They looked at each other for a second, then she said, “I couldn’t—”

“Me, neither,” Raleigh readily agreed. “Do you—”

“Yes, please,” Mako said quickly, making her way across the hall in three quick steps and shutting his door behind her.

Down the hall, in the private rooms that once held thirty scientists but now only held two, there was silence. Hermann lay on his bed stiff as a board, hands rigidly held at his side, face a mask of calm. Under his skin he was roiling; it felt like his bones were on fire. His brain kept picking up slices of Kaiju-blue tainted memories, and it was almost impossible to determine which were his and which were Newton’s.

He knew they’d have to drift again eventually, under more ideal circumstances, but for now he was just annoyed. Annoyed that he had these other memories in his head, annoyed that they belonged to his most bitter rival and most trusted(?) friend, annoyed that his leg was on fire from his knee to his hip. Annoyed that there was some tiny piece of him that longed for a human connection where he hadn’t longed for one in a very long time. He’d hoped to spend tonight alone, digesting and processing and with any luck sleeping; it was what he’d done after he defended his doctoral dissertation, it was what he’d done after his first boyfriend had broken up with him, it was what he’d done after his parents had gotten divorced. Alone is what Hermann did best.

He’d just decided to swing his legs off the bed and hobble over to the kettle to prepare a cup of tea, hopefully one that would call this headache to subside, when there was a knock at the door. “Who is it?”

“It’s, uh, it’s me,” said the weirdly anxious voice on the other side.

Though he tried to feel annoyance, all that came to Hermann was a feeling of relief as he called back, “Come in.”

The door swished open and Newton stepped over the threshold. He closed the door behind himself, then turned and leaned on it, nervously crossing his arms, then putting his hands on his hips, then letting them hang by his side, tapping on his thighs in a rhythm Hermann recognized from the vapid pop songs Newton played in the lab. Newton tapped on his legs as he looked around the room, taking in the framed artwork, shelves of books, and neat drawers. “Wow, so,” he tried, gesturing vaguely to Hermann’s space. “This is how you live.”

Hermann rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry it’s not quite as filthy as I’m sure the space you’re used to is, but—”

“No no, it’s good, it’s just what I expected,” Newton interrupted, seemingly unaware that Hermann had just insulted him again. Newton was wearing a stained pair of gray sweatpants and a weathered ‘Where’s The Beef?’ t-shirt. He looked at Hermann, still halfway out of bed, and wiped his (sweaty?) palms on his pants. “D’you need help?”

“I’m fine,” Hermann grunted. He finally managed to stand and step into his slippers, puttering around Newton to the kitchen and putting water in the kettle. He asked, “Tea?”

Newton blinked. “What?”

Hermann sighed, unable to keep the exasperation out of it. “Would you like tea?”

“Tea? I mean, what, yeah, I’d love tea. Why are you making me tea?”

“I’m making _me_ tea, as I have a headache,” Hermann qualified, taking two mugs down from the shelf as well as basket of Ziplocs, each containing a different variety of teabag, each neatly labeled. He selected the baggie of chamomile and withdrew two teabags. “I’m an Englishman, and you’re in my home, so to speak. It’s only polite to offer you tea.”

“You don’t make me tea in the lab.”

“That’s not my home. That’s our office.” Hermann dropped the teabags into the mugs, arranging them so when he poured the water in the string wouldn’t fall in. “You’re responsible for your own beverages at the office.”

“Responsible for your own beverages,” Newton couldn’t resist repeating back in his ridiculous approximation of Hermann’s accent. Hermann gave him a withering look and Newton stuck his tongue out. They both lapsed into silence, waiting for the whistle of the kettle. Newton fiddled with his thumbs, poked his tongue around his gums, tapped his toes. Hermann found himself watching Newton, this still perpetually fascinating, odd little man who had taken up residence in his life. His thoughts were about to drift into Newton’s memories when Newton abruptly asked, “D’you think we’re fired?”

Hermann started and sputtered, “Fired?”

“Yeah, like they’re gone, right? The big boys are out, so are we still gonna work here or what? Do they even need us anymore?”

“I haven’t got any idea.”

“I don’t think they will,” Newton said, and for the first time Hermann saw the quiet panic behind Newton’s eyes. “I think since the bots took out the monsters, we’re getting taken out, too.”

Hermann huffed, “Preposterous.”

“Is it, though? Is it, dude?” Newton demanded.

Before he could get any further the kettle began to whistle and Hermann turned to it to begin busily preparing the tea, avoiding Newton’s gaze. Hermann heard the scrape of one of his kitchen chairs and, when he was done getting the tea ready, brought both mugs over to the table, where Newton had clumsily settled himself. He set Newton’s mug down in front of him and turned the handle to face him, then gracefully toppled into the other chair with his mug. Newton was staring at his tea.

“Do you need a sillier mug?” Hermann asked tersely.

“What did you put in it?” Newton asked, and all the humor was gone from his voice.

Newton looked at Hermann with eyes rimmed in red and dark circles and Hermann swallowed. “Honey and lemon.”

“How did you know how I drink my tea?” Newton demanded. He gestured wildly, nearly knocking the tea over. “I barely fucking _drink_ tea, but you know how I like it?”

“You pick things up over the years,” Hermann snapped back. “Forgive me for—”

“No, no no,” Newton shouted, wagging his finger under Hermann’s nose. “I don’t drink tea! I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve drank tea in that lab, what, do you have an eidetic memory or something?”

“No! I just—”

“Just _what_?”

“Why are you so _upset_?” Hermann shouted. Newton began petulantly sinking down into his chair. “You’d think you’d be happy if I knew how to make your tea! If you knew how to make my _coffee_ , I’d be—”

“Milk and sugar, two scoops.”

“—ecstatic,” Hermann finished, the word coming out soft. He sat back like he’d been slapped, looking at Newton in shock and confusion. “How do you know how I take coffee?”

“I, you know, same reason, I guess,” Newton replied quietly. It was like a storm had blown over the two of them, and they now sat quietly staring at each other. Newton slowly moved to press his hands against his cheeks. “What are we gonna _do_ , Hermann?”

“I don’t know,” Hermann replied, and finally, he let his guard slip the tiniest bit, let a small amount of the well of anxiety in his lungs seep out and color his voice. “I can—I suppose I’ll go back to Cambridge. They wouldn’t mind me as a professor.”

“Princeton might like me,” Newton muttered. “But academia, I don’t know. How’m I supposed to go to a classroom when I’ve been inside a Kaiju? What do I tell those kids?”

“Write a book,” Hermann suggested. “Travel. Guest lecture, entertain the biology students with your wild stories.”

Newton was grinning, a dopey grin that covered his whole face. “Can you even imagine me as a writer? The intro would just be, ‘Check out these sick tentacles, dude.’”

Hermann snorted into his tea and made it slosh onto the table, which made Newton laugh, and soon they were both giggling like schoolchildren across from each other. It felt like an enormous relief, a pressure escaping them like helium from a balloon. Hermann put the tea back on the table and said, through his laughing, “I will miss you, Newton. You’ve improved my work so much.”

Newton’s laughs subsided and he asked, with a small smile, “For real?”

Hermann rolled his eyes, but he was smiling as well. “Much to my chagrin.”

Before Hermann had time to react, Newton was standing, planting his knee on the table and practically climbing over it to grab Hermann’s face and kiss him. It was clumsy and too hard; their teeth knocked together and Hermann heard Newt’s mug knock against the wall. Hermann hadn’t thought to close his eyes, so great was his shock, but after a second he did, letting them slide closed and tilting his head so as to give Newt better purchase. Newt’s kiss softened once he realized Hermann wasn’t pulling away, and his hands went from gripping Hermann’s face to caressing it, the tips of his fingers brushing against Hermann’s hair. They remained there for a moment, still, before Newt pulled away.

“Sorry,” he breathed, climbing off the table. “My knee started to hurt.”

Hermann sat still for a moment, head still tilted, eyes still closed, while he digested what had just happened. Finally, his eyes fluttered open and he demanded, “Why did you do that now?”

Newt looked confused as he asked, “What? What? What do you mean? Not ‘why did you do that?’ ‘Why did you do that _now_?’”

“Yes, why did you do that _now_?” Hermann repeated, frustration returning to his voice. He stood and snatched his mug, hobbling over to the kitchen sink to dump it out. The headache the tea was supposed to cure was suddenly, annoyingly, gone. “You could have done that at any time, when we _had_ time. You could have done that months ago, yet you choose now—”

“Months ago?!” Newt shouted.

“Yes, months ago!” Hermann shouted back. He was rinsing out the cup with more rage than he’d ever done dishes before. “Months ago, when we could have talked about it, when we might have had time to decide what we wanted to do. Not now! Not now, when—”

“We’re going to get fired,” Newt finished, the realization dawning on him too late. He put his hands in his hair and stared at Hermann, trying to formulate a sentence. “Shit, dude, I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well,” Hermann sniffed. He shut the water off and turned to look at Newt, leaning on the sink for support. “I should be happy it happened at all, I suppose. Still.”

“Yeah, still,” Newt echoed.

Newt stood and went to Hermann, pausing until Hermann nodded his head in a tiny ‘yes’. Newt slowly reached up and threaded his fingers into Hermann’s hair, bringing him down to kiss him again. This one was more deliberate, soft and warm and present. Hermann closed his eyes this time, and let his hands wander to settle on Newt’s waist. They stayed there for a second, pure exhausted connection between the men who’d helped save the world, before they pulled apart. Hermann found he couldn’t lift his head, so extreme was his tiredness, and so he settled for lowering his forehead onto Newt’s shoulder.

“So, what do we do?” Newt asked gently.

Hermann debated several answers before finally settling on, “We decide in the morning.”

“Right, sorry, we’re tired,” Newt said, moving as if to make his way to the door. “I’ll come back in the A.M. and—”

“You’re staying here, idiot,” Hermann grumbled, grabbing Newt’s hand and leading him towards the bedroom.

“Right,” Newt said, trying for cool but unable to stop the blush blooming across his face as he tripped to follow. “Right, yeah, of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> title is from 'heaven is a place on earth' by belinda carlisle, aka newt's vapid pop song.


End file.
